The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [185]
Breakfast was hard rolls not much after dawn, and Shervan woke as talkative as he went to sleep.
“A wonderful morning to be alive. Look at the pink above the hills, and the dew like pearls upon the yucca. A good day for a long ride, and it will be a long ride to Kyphrien, but a sunny one. Don’t you think so, Pendril?”
Pendril earned my gratitude by grunting.
The midday meal was in a barracks of road soldiers in a place whose name I never learned, distinguished mainly by the fact that the small post controlled the bridge over the first river I had seen in Kyphros—a snaking tongue of water no more than fifteen cubits wide and less than a cubit deep.
“But when the spring floods come, then the waters sweep everything before them and the land is underwater for kay upon kay.”
I hadn’t asked, but Shervan answered the questions I might have posed, and all too many even I wouldn’t have considered.
That was how we reached Kyphros.
LX
“THIS IS AS far as we go,” Shervan had told me as he and Pendril escorted me to the low walls around the guard complex.
“Why?”
“Our job is just to get you here. We’re outliers, and we’re not allowed within the walls. That is, unless we are mustered in for training or for special duties, and that does happen.” He shrugged, almost dropping his reins, “As for us, we keep the waystation for stray wizards and let Barrabra tell us what to do. What else can we do?” He smiled apologetically.
I smiled at his expressive face. Since I knew but half the story, I couldn’t say whether the restriction made all that much sense, but who was I to quibble? “So what am I supposed to do?”
“You stable your pony in the main stables. You just ride right through the gates on the left. Then you go to the building with the green flag and ask to see the sub-commander. They will mumble and mutter, but you just tell them everything and insist on your right to see the sub-commander. Just insist on it. I’m sure you’ll find some way to convince them.”
Both men laughed at that.
Their confidence was touching, if misplaced. And I couldn’t deny that it had been a relief to ride the last day without having to weave shields or worry about being denounced as a wizard or keep hiding from everyone.
So I rode up to the gate, where the guard looked me over, then back at the pair of outlier soldiers. “What did you drop on me?”
“Orders! He’s supposed to see the sub-commander.” Shervan didn’t exactly keep a straight face. Pendril looked in the other direction.
“One of those?” The gate guard shook his head, then looked at me. “The stable is on the left. Once you get your…horse…settled, go straight across the yard to the main building. Don’t go anywhere else, or someone’s like to draw before they ask questions.”
The stable was right where it was supposed to be, a solid red brick with a slate roof and a slight but not overpowering odor of horse manure.
“Official business?” asked the ostler, practically running me down even before I had both feet on the ground.
I nodded.
“Sign here.” He handed me a flat square of parchment and pointed to a line under the words “stable permit.” He stepped back. “If you can’t sign, use your mark. Get an officer or a serjeant to chop this. Otherwise it’s a copper a day. If you lose the permit, it’s two coppers a day.” He looked at me and at Gairloch. “Mountain pony?”
“Yes.”
“If you want to stable him, you can have the last stall on the right.”
Since it wasn’t really a request, I led Gairloch to the last stall and unsaddled him. I did shield the saddlebags, just as a matter of habit. But I brought my staff with me.
The ostler looked at it with respect. “Seeing the sub-commander?”
“That’s what I understand.”
“Good luck! Tough lady. Go to the red archway, over there, under the green flag.”
With that I walked less than a hundred cubits, where I found another guard, standing beside